Study warns of health risk from ethanol

[Guest guest]

[sadly, it's starting to look like ethanol will not save us from petroleum

after all. Oh well!]

 

 

 

Study warns of health risk from ethanol

 

 

 

Keay Davidson, <kdavidson Chronicle Science Writer

 

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

 

 

 

If ethanol ever gains widespread use as a clean alternative fuel to

gasoline, people with respiratory illnesses may be in trouble.

 

A new study out of Stanford says pollution from ethanol could end up

creating a worse health hazard than gasoline, especially for people with

asthma and other respiratory diseases.

 

" Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce

global warming and air pollution, " Mark Z. Jacobson, the study's author and

an atmospheric scientist at Stanford, said in a statement. " But our results

show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public

health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage. "

 

The study appears in today's online edition of Environmental Science &

Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society. It comes at a

time when the Bush administration is pushing plans to boost ethanol

production and the nation's automakers are required by 2012 to have half

their vehicles run on flex fuel, allowing the use of either gasoline or

ethanol.

 

Jacobson used a computer to model how pollution from ethanol fuel would

affect different parts of the country in 2020, when ethanol-burning vehicles

are expected to be common on America's roadways.

 

He found that ethanol-burning cars could boost levels of toxic ozone gas in

urban areas, but that Los Angeles residents would be by far the hardest hit

because of the city's reliance on the automobile and environmental factors

that tend to concentrate smog there.

 

His study showed that the city would experience a 9 percent increase in the

rate of ozone-related respiratory deaths -- 120 more deaths per year --

compared with what would have been projected in 2020 assuming continued

gasoline use.

 

Pollution from ethanol would be riskier than pollution from gasoline because

when ethanol breaks down in the atmosphere, it generates considerably more

ozone. Ozone is a highly corrosive gas that damages the delicate tissues of

the lungs. In fact, it's so corrosive that it can crack rubber and wear away

statues, Jacobson told The Chronicle.

 

 

 

Full story:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/18/MNG7EPAN601.D

TL